


Pivot

by shadoedseptmbr



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr





	Pivot

“Major Alenko is in the lounge, Commander.”

EDI’s voice came over the comm in an unusually hushed tone and Shepard pulled up before she barged into the lounge for a drink.  “He alright?”

“I believe he is experiencing what is colloquially known as a migraine.”

“Bad?”  She didn’t like to pry, but she was his commander.  Yup.  That’s all. 

The pause was nearly imperceptible as EDI ran his numbers.  “It is the most severe he has experienced since arriving on the Normandy.”

Fuck.  Damn it, why didn’t he say anything?  The worst ones always had a lead time. 

Worse, why hadn’t she noticed?

Because she’d been avoiding him.  Orders. Ship duties.  She hadn’t looked him in the eyes in a week.  Not since she blew him off in her quarters over a question about the damned fishtank.

Not the way that was supposed to have gone.  Not the way she meant to… _Damn it_.  Fuck this. 

“Open the door, EDI.  Quietly.”  Aedan shifted to a soft footed walk and scanned the room.  He had the lights dimmed as much as possible, but given the way he was curled up on the sofa, it wasn’t helping much.  “Hey…Kaidan,” she murmured. 

He pushed himself up on an elbow, or tried to.  Crap, his reflexes were off, too.    
“Mission?  I’m good, give me…”

“No, Major.  Have you taken your meds?  Do I need to call Chakwas?”  She pitched her voice as low as she could and knelt down in front of him to look into his face.  Pain was etched around his eyes, the scars on his lips gone white, in the way he squinted, in the hunch of his body.  He wouldn’t want her touching him, she remembered.  Everything hurt… especially sound and movement, which was why he was here instead of in the busy crew quarters.  But she couldn’t close down the leisure area on the ship.  Not these days.  And the poker game was about to start.  So…

“Took ‘em.  Haven’t kicked in.  Waited…”

“Too long.”

His grimace agreed and she decided.

“Okay.  C’mon. Let’s get you up.”

“Don’t want the doc…”

“Not the doc, Kaidan.  Peace and quiet and a good cool room, okay?”

He was clearly too caught in pain to disagree, and she helped him up.  He staggered but she caught him.  “Careful.  Gotcha.”

She levered a shoulder under his arm and half hauled him to the lift.  EDI managed to keep the ride steady and the mech quiet and the doors opened into her cabin, with the lights already dimmed to just the ambient glow of the empty tank and the starfield outside.  The temp was lowered, too and Aedan steered him to the bed. 

He hunched in on himself with a low groan.  Pretty far gone, then.  She unlaced his boots and loosened his straps; clinically, as she would for any other injured crew.  Thinking for a minute, she opened the locker and pulled a soft blanket out to lay over him.  Once the med kicked in, he’d be chilled.

He was as settled as she could make him and after setting out a vacbottle of water she padded back out of her quarters.  “Check his vitals, EDI.” 

“All within acceptable parameters.  The medication is reaching optimum dispersal in his circulatory system now." 

She let out a breath and let her hands shake, for just a second.    “Okay.  Let me know when he’s starting to come up.”  Nothing to do now but wait it out. 

**_0000_ **

Kaidan blinked slowly.  The haze of pain and pill bled away, a soft mattress beneath him and the feel of smooth linen on his shoulders and he realized…he wasn’t where he thought he’d gone to ground when the world had tunneled out on him. 

Vaguely, he recalled Shepard and…had she really..?  There was a bottle of water and a couple of biotic ration bars on the nightstand and he could hear soft breathing in the room. 

Shepard’s quarters, dim and cool. 

And Shepard herself curled up in the corner of the couch across the room, data pad dangling.  She always could sleep anywhere. 

He snagged the bottle and popped the cap.  When he finished draining the bottle she was looking at him, reserve and…worry, in the cloudy grey of her eyes.  “Hey…thanks,” he managed to rasp.

“No problem.  You alright?”

“Better.  Sor..”

She cut him off with a soft snort.  “Don’t be sorry.  If you could help it, I’d yell at you.  Although, you should have said something.”

“Didn’t want to…be a bother.”  Her grimace told him what she thought of that, too.

“Eat, okay?”

“Yeah.”  The second bar was one of the salty sweet ones, his favorite.  Movement caught his eye and he was a little startled that she’d snuck up on him. 

The mattress dipped under her weight as she sat.  And she lifted her hand like she was going to check his temperature, but she pulled back at the last minute.  “Come here, next time.  The lounge gets too much traffic these days.”

“I didn’t…think I’d be welcome.”

She swallowed, but something like battlefield determination locked her jaw.  “You’re always welcome here.  Kaidan…I’m a mess, not even gonna bother to deny it. But I need you on the Normandy and I want you…I just, if you want…”

He grinned at her. 

“Fuck this…you could help me out here, you know.”  Her hand flew out to tag his shoulder, but she pulled it again.  Sympathy for the wounded. Or trying not to presume

He grabbed her fingers before they could skitter away.  “I like it when you flail a little. Silvertongued Commander Shepard, getting flustered just like any other human.”

 She stared at her fingers in his hand.    “I know what I’m supposed to say to them.  There are…rules.  Every time you..the damn rules go out the window.  I…just.  Kaidan…I don’t want to mess this up. Again.”

 She’d whispered the last word.  Kaidan nodded.  But then he felt his smile go soft and brushed his thumb over her fingers.  “I’m gonna let you in on a secret, Shepard.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t mess this up.  You need space and I’ll give it to you…but I’m here, whenever you’re ready.”  He ducked his chin.  “Is that pathetic?”

“No.  It’s…”

“Commander, we’re 3 minutes out from Tuchanka.”

“Thanks, EDI.”  His hand tightened on hers, but she didn’t scramble up from the bed to get away this time.  “I need to get suited up.”

“Me, too.”  Her eyes drifted over him, Commander Shepard and not Aedan. 

“Yeah, okay.  Chakwas first, though.  And support only.”  They could hear the change in the engines as Joker dropped the Normandy out of the mass effect field.  “Time to go, Major.”

 Kaidan could count the freckles on her nose, this close up.  He’d missed them.  

 “When we’re done here we’re headed back to the Citadel, right?”

“Probably.  Gotta clear the hold of all the crap we’ve picked up.  Why?”

Kaidan shrugged.  He wasn’t sure the little restaurant he was thinking of was even open yet, after the coup attempt.  He’d have to check it out.  “Just a thought.” 

“Yeah?  Okay.  C’mon.”  She shook her fingers free of his loosened grip and stood to open the near by locker and he managed not to sway at all as he stood, as well.  Not great…but better. 

Shepard winked at him over her shoulder as he left her quarters.  Yeah.  Definitely better. 

 


End file.
